OS and Dev kit

Looks good! But what is the underlying OS? S60? Linux? Something else? And what about a development kit? Can I still create my own J2ME apps as I can for other Nokia phones? And if yes, does it offer an API to interact with the touch screen? And what about multi-touch and a tilt sensor? Any device that wants to be an iPhone killer needs to offer the same level of interaction AND be easy to program for.

Free pick?

Another useless slate

If it is running the most recent Symbian it is not getting anywhere near my household. That is the one where Nokia deliberately crippled VOIP to satisfy the operator B&D fetishes.

VOIP is not a bell-n-whistle. It is a requirement nowdays. People are working from home, having separate numbers for different members of the household, or even talking to the significant other who has climbed two floors up into the loft conversion to get work done.

I had to return a brand new N78 a couple of weeks back and tell O2 to stuff it down Nokia throat for this particular reason. Actually it was not just VOIP. The camera was horrid crap as well. Overall - almost as useless as an iPhone for non-music stuff. I ended up with the good old N95-1 as a result. It may be a brick, its interface may be anything but user friendly, but it has all the features you need and expect in a high end phone.

Re: Another useless slate

Is it really Nokia's fault if operators disable features? (and certainly has zero to do with Symbian).

Besides, you would have been better off buying a top-end phone sim free and save yourself the huge whack of money you'd be spending on the operator tariff to get it so called "free" and locked down tight. Sim-free, it would have all features fully enabled and you'll get updates quicker.

iPhone comparison

don't know why the author has titled this "Nokia's IPhone beater" since it's not trying to be, this is a touch resistive, iPhone is multi-touch capacitive etc so in a way you can't really compare.. Anyway it does have video capture, MMS, Flash(which is comin to iPhone at some point anyway) cut & paste etc and with the price point is interesting.. Let's see

Not so bad!

I have an N82 and to be honest it's the best Nokia I've ever had!

The old N series phones had a tendency to crash, reboot etc but the newer ones tend to be really good and crash a lot less. N series with Skype + 5mp camera + WiFi + Mail4Exchange = a happy me! Especially as I don't want a large phone or a Blackberry!

Not convinced on touch screen phones though! You can't beat a keyboard for text/mail.

@Tony Chandler

I've seen videos of the UI on other sites, it seems to be a traditional scrollbars, slow screen updates & indirect navigation mess. This phone really seems to be for the benefit of carriers who need to tick boxes in catalogues rather than end users.

NICE ADVERTISMENT

Re: Crippled Nokia?

N78 comes crippled at factory default. So do a couple of other 3rd edition phones.

A couple of minutes worth of Internet searching would have told this to you.

It is in fact crippled by Nokia and it is deliberate (they are saying it is not a bug, it is a feature). To be most exact the "Internet telephony" module is missing and there are no associated prefs. You still have SIP prefs, but they do not hook up into anything.

VOIP

It only takes 20 minutes, a copy of nemesis service suite, and running it through the nokia software updater to get back anything the network had removed, and also gets rid of all their crappy branding. The same thing should apply to this model. Even PH can do it...

@iPhone comparison

"don't know why the author has titled this "Nokia's IPhone beater" since it's not trying to be, this is a touch resistive, iPhone is multi-touch capacitive etc so in a way you can't really compare.."

Also, the plastic is a slightly different shade of black to the iPhone so there is absolutely no basis for comparison with the iPhone. Completely different devices aimed at totally different markets.

Nokia aren't scrambling desperately to regain some market credibility after Apple shone a bright spotlight on their lack of innovation. No. You see, one has capacitive touchscreen and the other has resistive. Couldn't be more different.

Re: Crippled Nokia?

"N78 comes crippled at factory default. So do a couple of other 3rd edition phones."

N78 has a new VoIP architecture and the product was launched simply without a built in client. It's fully VoIP capable, but just needs 3rd party VoIP apps and/or an update from Nokia to add a client based on the new architecture.

The same happened with the N80. Initially it was launched without the full integrated VoIP client, likely to get it onto the market quick. Later they relaunched it as the N80i, although they did release the same features as an update to the original N80.

Crippled? Well that depends if it was sold as a VoIP phone. If it's not one of the advertised features then it's not crippled. i.e. do your research and buy a VoIP capable phone in the future ;)*

* - though in my opinion, VoIP is not worth the effort anyway, especially if you expect to use it on public hotspots.

Anyway, as for the 5800, it's a different kettle of fish entirely. First S60 5th edition phone.

5800 != iPhone. Why is that a bad thing?

First of all, everyone is comparing this to the iPhone. It's never going to be an iPhone. If it was the same as the iPhone how pointless would it be?

The 5800 is priced at £215 sim-free, before subsidy. The iPhone is £350 on PAYG for the 8gb version (PAYG is subsidised..).

This is the (mid-range) first in a line of Nokia touchscreen phones; there will be more expensive ones in the future which will probably cost more, onboard storage, better camera, larger screen etc - but this phone is, in theory, selling to a different segment of the market than the iPhone.

I say in theory but we all knew that the first touch-screen phone from Nokia would be compared to the iPhone, regardless.

I would like an iPhone, I really would, but it just doesn't do stuff that I currently use my phone to do (Slingplayer, TomTom, Half-decent camera, Video Recording, AD2P). I'll probably be going for an N85 for my upgrade.

(I would never buy the 5800, being the first phone to use a new version of S60(v5). Give it a while for for some decent app support to arrive)

VOIP oip

Has anyone got VOIP to work on a Nokia anyway? My Nokia E51 comes with Nokia's preferred VOIP app Gizmo preinstalled. But it's unusable, with awful sound quality and terrible latency (delay). Skype is the same on the E51.

no way

It reminds me of the £80 Hiphone iPhone clone you can buy from eBay. Looks like an iPhone, has a good features list but is nowhere near as good and misses the point. That's before we even think about the 30 or so essential iPhone apps.

iPhone beater?

Not bad

Just got an N78, and I'm loving it, this could be a nice upgrade in a few months.

Regarding VOIP, haven't you people tried fring? It works amazingly for me, doing both voip and skype, msn, icq, gtalk, you name it. I'm using freecall.com for voip out and skypein, automatically picks the best connection available (wifi then 3g then edge)

@Andrew Bush

Re: No multitouch

Um... I was under the impression that Apple had hogged a patent precisely on multi-touchscreens, so I doubt you'll see any non-Apple devices with multi-touch.

@"No VoIP": So, you want to freeload calls on your mobile carrier? I admit my cellphone bills are high, but that doesn't mean I'd go out and rip 'em off with VoIP. Anyway, I'd be surprised on getting VoIP to work in a mobile connection without high latency!

This Nokia sounds interesting, but for me the "killer" feature is a physical QWERTY keyboard, which my Blackberry happily provides. I think I'll pass... but I will recommend this one over the iBone to potential iPhone victim^W buyers.